Fall River man arraigned on armed robbery, burglary charges

A Fall River man is arraigned on charges of robbing a convenience store at knifepoint and burglarizing a garage.

Brian Fraga Herald News Staff Reporter @BfragaHN

FALL RIVER — A Fall River man was arraigned Tuesday in Superior Court on charges of robbing a Robeson Street convenience store at knifepoint and burglarizing a garage in February.

Clifford Cardoso, 32, no address, is being held on $25,000 cash bail. He is charged with armed and masked robbery, breaking and entering daytime for felony and larceny from a building.

Witnesses identified Cardoso as the man in a surveillance photo that police released from the Stop & Save convenience store at 345 Robeson St.

On Feb. 9, around 6:10 p.m., a man wearing dark clothes and a ski mask partially covering his face entered the store, brandished a knife at the clerk, then fled the store after taking cash from the register, according to court records.

After a surveillance photo was released, two people left anonymous tips identifying Cardoso as the suspect, Fall River Detective Kelly Furtado said. A separate witness told Furtado that Cardoso was a heroin addict who had recently relapsed and was resorting to armed robbery to support his habit, according to court records.

In September 2008, Cardoso was sentenced to serve 2½ years in state prison after he pleaded guilty to armed robberies of convenience stores in New Bedford.

At the time of the Stop & Save robbery, Fall River police were already investigating Cardoso for an early February garage burglary in which Cardoso is believed to have stolen four power tools, one of which he allegedly pawned. The garage owner told police that Cardoso admitted to him that he stole the tools, according to court documents.

On March 11, police officers found Cardoso at the Knights Inn in Seekonk. Cardoso denied robbing Stop & Save, though he told police that he was in the store and that the suspect in the surveillance photo resembles him, according to court records.

Cardoso is scheduled to return to court May 22 for a pretrial hearing.